Diary of Making

For my final major project, I planned on creating three outfits based on streetwear but reinvented and over exaggerated, the end point being a collection inspired by graffiti and made for my final fashion show. Each outfit has specific details to relate back to my topic and further link everything into one cohesive collection. Finally, each piece in the collection is made to be mixed and matched allowing for 9 different looks for the outfits if you swapped pieces around. The collection also includes all pieces being two toned with red top stitching throughout linking everything further.

First, I started by toiling each piece for my collection.

I started with created a balaclava as I thought it linked to my themes well as graffiti could be seen as criminal and the fire artists wear masks to hide their identity while in streetwear, they are common as an accessory. Making this pattern I just created a basic spherical shape and then kept adjusting it to change and tweak areas that needed it, after making five toilets I got to a pattern that I liked, and I then changed it one more time to make it slightly smaller as I was going to make the mask out of stretch rather than woven. With this I had created the basic stretch balaclava however I then altered the pattern to add an asymmetrical drop to the mask into an arm hole as a little extra change to the piece.

I started with my jorts, the first pattern I made was very a-line.

This wasn’t what I wanted as it started at the waist tight and then bounced out rather than making oversized Jorts with a big waist and it being boxier. I then changed this pattern to the final pattern I liked. This was straighter and wider at the waist which would allow a waistband to ruffle up when tightened with a belt. Toiling this pattern, I used two fabrics to get an idea of what the final piece would be like in the two-tone denim look.

This toile worked well in showing me the shapes of the garment that would be created once I made it in my final fabric. I also like the shape of the pocket when it was pinned up to represent how it would sit outwards while being ruffled from the waist.

Designing and toiling the T-shirt was simple as I copied the lines off my design onto my pattern giving me a garment that was proportional to my design, I also increased the size of the normal bodice pattern that I first used to get the shape to make it an oversized and boxier fit to link back to the shorts being a boxy, oversized outfit overall.

For my corset toile, I took a pattern I had previously made at the start of the project in my pattern cutting lesson where we did some draping on the stand, this meant the pattern was made to fit the stand tightly and I was able to alter it for the look I was going for.

Using the pre-existing draping pattern, it gave me my first pattern for the corset. This worked well giving me the look of my design however I still had yo adjust it slightly as I had made it too high over the bust which made it less revealing and ruined the idea of it being a corset. Changing the pattern, it gave me my final one which I would then take forward into final fabrics.

Making the pattern for my parachute pants, I used the normal trouser block to get the top half to match when being made. For this I traced the normal pattern to the crotch and then I added my changes by making the inside leg and side seam leg to jump back out and create a wide bubbly, bouncy look to the leg while also curving it back into the bottom hem. Once I made the pattern, I got a lightweight fabric to toile the initial design. This worked well in giving me the overall open look to the parachute pants before adding a drawstring in the hem and middle of the leg. To do this I created a channel with some elastic cording as a pull cord and pinned it where I’d want it on the trouser, I then had to figure out how I’d attach it to the garment if I did it this was which wouldn’t have worked as it would be a pain to run the sewing machine at home. For this issue I added the channel into the pattern as a separate panel that ran through it, this meant I separated the top and bottom of the trousers and connected them together will incorporating the pull cord. I also planned to add a pull cord into the waist coming out of the centre front however the pattern was already too tight on the stand, so I left that in the final piece and also added a hem by catching the pull cord in a double turned hem.

Toiling my final top for my collection being my puffer, I created a symmetrical pattern using the original bodice block but sizing up as I knew the garment would get smaller when stuffed. Making the pattern I made each panel of the garment being the two front bodices and the joined back bodices be separated into four further panels to create my brick like look to my garment. This toile was simple for the main bodice part as it was simple lines, however making the hood wasn’t as easy. This was because I had never made a hood before and therefore it was a trial-and-error moment to come up with the shape and look while toiling. After a few attempts I came up with a design that I believed would work with the toile for the bodice portion, I then added my brick worked panel sleeves into the pattern using the same sized panels throughout to make sure it all worked with one another. Finally, I changed the way I would make the whole thing as I initially made the pattern to be cut 2 pairs of each piece to have a front and back in the panels however this was hard to achieve a cleaner finish, so I changed the design and added a back facing to each piece of the puffer therefore giving me a cleaner finish and allowing for a better inside.

Creating the final toile for my collection I made my cargo trousers, the initial design for the trousers were just straightforward trousers with pockets all over so I adjusted this to add two open ended zips into each leg allowing for the trousers to transform into either ¾ length trousers or into shorts or Jorts, as it was made out of black denim, this change meant that the original layout of my pockets wouldn’t work as I didn’t want pockets hanging off over zips into different panels and therefore I changed the layout on the final garment of the pockets. For the pockets I came up with a universal back pocket which would then feature on all of the bottoms in my collection. This pocket was made initially for outfit 1s Jorts as ur was meant to represent a place for a spray can to fit into and also linked to the curves seen on the front of the Jorts. This pocket was then used in this trouser as my cargo pockets. I sampled different cargo pockets for these trousers however each one I tried always had issues from the way to attach it or how it sits on the garment, so I decided to have my universal pocket to also be on the front of the garment and link it to the whole collection further.

Once everything had been toiled it was time to move onto ordering fabrics and getting all the haberdashery needed to create each outfit. To do this I had to create lay plans for each fabric I needed. This also helped me get my technical pack done and got the process of gathering the materials more organised.

For outfit 1 I needed a lighter and darker blue denim to create my Jorts, and for my football top I went with a white and yellow/ orange (Sunset) stretch jersey. In addition to the fabrics needed for this outfit I also had to get some rivets for my Jorts however I went with Jean buttons instead to add a 3D element to the garment. Also, I needed a fly front zip to open and close the waist and finally the thread throughout the whole collection being a red thread to link to my spray painting later on in the making.

Making outfit 2 needed a few more things, of course it needed the coral pink and lavender purple cotton canvas for the corset and the waterproof rip-stock in an olive green and emerald green, however it also needed to buy elastic cording for my fully channels along with the clips that bite on the cord to hold it to where you’ve pulled it, in addition to getting some red thinner cording to lace up my corset, this was also used in outfit 3, and finally I got an eyelet kit to use on my corset for the lacing in five different places.

Finally, for outfit 3 I needed to get waterproof rip-stock in orange and honey for my puffer jacket to try creating the brick wall look I was going for and I also needed black cotton denim for my cargo trousers, however there wasn’t a grey cotton denim to create my two toned look I was going for so I had to use the back side of the black denim instead which still worked well but not as planned. For the outfit I also needed bias binding to finish around the edges of my puffer jacket along with the zip used in the centre front of it. For the trousers I needed a fly front zip along with the four longer open-ended zips to create my different lengthening trousers and finally the cording used in my appliqué style of application all over the trousers in a graffiti style.

Outfit 1

The first piece of piece I made was the Jorts, these are inspired by big Japanese trousers and new streetwear trends including baggy trousers/Jorts. As the pattern and toiling process of this garment went very well, I had high hopes on the construction of the final piece as it all went very smoothly throughout the creation. Initially I started with adding the knee panel onto the front pieces of the Jorts, this panel was inspired by the knee protection you see in working trousers like carpenter trousers and is very popular in the streetwear community by companies like dickies who make things like workwear clothing such as overalls or double knees, also Carhartt and Carhartt WIP made the double knee look very popular causing it to spread into many other brands collections and stores. With this inspiration for my double knee, I folded back the edges on the sides of it and topstitched it onto the main front of my Jorts. With this done I went on to sewing the two large front pockets, the front is symmetrical and therefore it was just repeating the same thing onto the other side. Making the pocket was simple as I had toiled it already to understand the French hemming of pocket bags so that everything was perfectly made for function and comfort. The only problem with the front pockets is that when I had added the top stitching to the front of the pocket, I hadn’t caught the last bit at the top so there are two raw edges which can be felt within the pocket. I believe this was from when I was French hemming the pocket bag, I must have missed some of it while doing it and therefore leaving an exposed edge, a simple solution to this could be to go back over the top stitching in the area to help hold down and keep the pocket bag to the front of the shorts and close off the gap.

With the front of the jorts mainly complete, I could then move onto the back of them. The first thing I did was connect the back yoke onto the corresponding sides of the garment as this was how I then lined up the next step. Moving on from this it set me up to applying the back pockets, this included my universal signature pocket which runs throughout this collection, and also an extended version which was made to store a spray can while wearing these Jorts. I lined the bottom point of the yoke with the corner of the pocket, and this allowed me to get the location of the pocket correct, for the other side I placed it within the middle of the panel, and I was happy with it.

With both sides of the garment made I could close the side seam, inside leg and up the backside of the garment leaving just the centre front open to add a fly front zip. With the garment made into one piece I now added my Jean buttons onto the corners of parts where I had put rivets on my design. To use these, I had to create a small hole in the fabric to place through the screw side of the button and then place the button onto that, using a hammer to connect the two sides.

Next, I pressed back the centre front seams and got ready to sew in my fly front zip. For this I got an 8-inch zip and applied it to a placket and then I sewed the right side onto the centre front of the garment. With this I pressed back the placket and pinned it out of the way so that I could sew the left side of the zip onto the centre front. Finally, to finish off the fly front zip I sewed a box and cross over the bottom of the zip tape to secure the zip.

With the zip done it was onto one of the last steps, adding a waistband. For this I measured the total waist of the Jorts and then added seam allowance and the two more inches to allow for an overlap to add a button and buttonhole. I cut out a long strip of fabric, overlocked the edges and then sewed one side of it to the front of the garment like attaching a placket. With this I then folded the waistband back over and attached it to the other side giving me a complete waistband. Now all I had to add was a buttonhole and then hammer in one last Jean button, the buttonhole mode on my machine was complicated to use so I chose to use a small zigzag stitch and go back and forth to create two lines and snip in between them to create my buttonhole. Next, I created five belt loops using left over fabric to stop it going to waste and I sewed them onto my waistband to allow for a belt, or in my case a sew lace to go round the Jorts and pull everything into the waist of the wearer. Finally, all I had to do was double turn the hem and sew this down to finish off the garment completely.

With the Jorts for outfit 1 complete I moved onto the T-shirt for outfit 1 as well, this was inspired by football shirts and kits as they have recently become very common to be worn with jeans or at festivals and seem to keep growing as a staple for streetwear.

For this I used jersey stretch and therefore to sew everything together I had to use an overlocker. This was a problem as when making the piece I only had two more days in college to create it and it wasn’t possible to overlock everything else as well for clean finishes on my home machine. To combat this issue, I bought myself a brand-new brother 734Ds overlocker to increase the quality of my garments and expand my creative ability into making stretch clothing. With this now in hand, I could make my T-shirt at home. Overlocking all the edges of my cut pieces I realised that all of the straight edges I created on the pattern would be very hard to execute on an overlocker and with my lightweight jersey. I tried my best putting each of the panels together, however there are some areas throughout the T-shirt where the edges curve round and soften out rather than being the sharp points I was looking for. With the basic edges and panels of the front and back going together fairly smoothly, it was time to attach the sleeves. This was the main problem I had while creating this piece. I forgot that you have to put right sides together and this led to me sewing the first sleeve on inside out. This wasn’t helpful, because as I was using an overlocker everything became serged together and was a pain to unpick and in places almost impossible to unpick. This led to me getting annoyed and eventually just cutting off the seam where the shoulder met the sleeve, once this was off, I was able to re overlock everything and put it back on the right way. To equal this out for the other side I then took the 0.5 seam allowance I had been using off of the seam so that they were then the same again, this however meant the sleeve and the hole it would attach to were uneven and therefore there are some parts of the sleeve seam that stretched and other parts that puckered and pleated. Moving on from this minor setback I got onto the finishing method to my football T-shirt. I wanted to bias bind the edges, but I chose not to as it would lose the stretch, although you don’t need the hem or arms or neck to stretch any more than its original position, however I didn’t add that and chose to use my home machines stretch stitch which looks like a lightning bolt to help with double turning each hem. This allowed for some stretch to still be in the hems and also allowed me to get some red stitching into the garment as it didn’t initially have any and therefore didn’t link to the overall top stitching throughout the collection. This finished off the T-shirt and finished off the first outfit in my collection besides the mask accessory which will be added later.

Outfit 2

For creating outfit two I first started with my corset. This came with many problems and after struggling with it came many solutions. The first thing I did for making my corset was cutting out the fabric, this came with the first problem. As I was going for a two-toned theme throughout, I cut everything twice so that I could make each side, however when putting it together the first time I didn’t make the pattern pieces the right colours and therefore had to already restart the design. After this mistake I recut the right pieces and organised it so that I had everything payed out to put together. The next problem was with the top stitching. As I made it two toned it also meant the back was the same, but the opposite and I also added the top stitching to that layer. This was problematic as it meant the inside would be rough and not as flexible, this wouldn’t have been nice against the skin. After making the main front pieces I started joining everything together and I believe due to me rushing it this is where the main problems began as after that everything went downhill and started to not line up. First the topstitching in areas meant that I couldn’t fold places back or connect the front and back properly, then I tried bagging out the whole piece but leaving open where I would have the cording. With this bagged out I had a somewhat neat piece however when pulling everything back round the front somehow didn’t line up with the back. While adding the cording it was difficult to fold back where I would put the cording through and some of the topstitched pieces were thicker making this difficult, this caused me to rush it and just try get it done quickly rather than taking my time and making it as good as possible. This meant I sewed through the cording and my top stitching was bouncing back and forth rather than being straight and I then sewed through the cording but didn’t catch it all meaning some was sticking out of the seam. This is where I realised, I wanted to redo the whole piece from the beginning, this meant cutting everything out again and taking my time rather than rushing it all. I also plan on using eyelets throughout to run the cording through rather than trying to catch everything in seams. This means I can bag everything out properly and keep it as neat as possible. The process for this was more successful as I didn’t topstitch the inside/lining side of the garment to allow it to be looser and not cause issues against the skin, I also bagged everything out at once rather than leaving areas open to fold back in as thar caused the quality to decrease. Finally running everything through eyelets meant there were neat holes perfectly placed apart to allow for the cording to run through.

The second part of my outfit 2 was my parachute pants, these were designed to go further and develop on the parachute pants already seen trending in streetwear by exaggerating the size and making bigger wider legs with long elastic drawstrings/cording. With the patterns made how I wanted it I cut out my fabric, this being waterproof rip-stock in emerald green and olive green and got to making. The first thing I did was test how the fabric overlocked and sewed as I knew due to its slippery texture it was going to give me some problems, from this I learnt I had to up the stitch length and also sew seams first and then overlock them closed rather than the other way around, this was because it caused tunnelling on the edges if I overlocked it first. With this knowledge I got to putting my pieces together, these we’re probably the simplest looking trousers but somehow the hardest to put together working with the elastic channel and the large slippery fabrics but I got it done. First, I put the back pockets on and sewed the inseam pocket onto the front so that I could then put the top half’s together as well as the bottom halves. Next came the challenging part, I cut out my panels for the elastic cording and put it in making a ring with it caught inside. With this I had to wriggle everything around my sewing machine to get it to sew to the middle of the trousers, this was difficult, but I took my time and it all worked well and came together working perfectly. These were almost finished after that as all I had to do was put both legs together by sewing the crotches together and then adding the facing to the waist as I was going to add a drawstring into it however, I realised the waist was already very tight and this would’ve been useless unless my model was very thin. This left me with adding the elastic cording into the hem, to do this I cut my elastic and sewed the ends down at one point on the bottom of each leg, next I double turned the hems up making sure I caught the elastic in it and then sewed around enclosing the elastic in the double turn hem. With this I made a small snip into the leg to pull the end of the cording out and attached my pull cord clip so that you could tighten the bottoms. This completed me parachute pants and outfit two overall without the balaclava.

Outfit 3

For this I started by making the cargo trousers. These were inspired by two pairs of my own trousers, the first being work cargo trousers that I bought from a charity shop which have lots of pockets and fit baggy. The second pair of trousers that inspired my design were Nike ACG hiking trousers that I bought second hand off Depop, these trousers zip off into shorts to allow the hiker to change based on the weather, I liked both of these and combined them while elevating them to create my final design. Making the garment I cut out all the pieces including 12 pockets for the front and back, during this process I realised it would be hard to sew cargo pockets onto the front as the panels were smaller due to the zips breaking up the leg, therefore I decided to use the back pocket on the front as well as it also linked more to the rest of the project as it was my universal pocket used throughout. With this I started sewing my pockets into the places that I put them in my designs, this was simple as I had previously sewn this pocket on the other two outfits, and I got used to how to sew it. However, some of the panels meant that I had to either rotate the pocket to be on its side or make it smaller, with these changes I moved onto the next step. Once I had each panel with its sewn pockets, I could then sew the front Jean style pockets into the garment, this was simple as it was just replicating the way I sewed in the front pockets on the Jorts therefore I got through this quickly making sure I French seamed the pocket bag, so it was bagged out and clean stitching. Next, I took my panels and laid out the front and backs together to chalk on my lines where I would add my red elastic cording which would be zig caged over to hold it down, this cording design was based on a piece of graffiti I saw while doing my research and I took the outline itself and put it onto my design, this part was simple but time consuming as it had to be done over all the panels and avoiding the pockets. With this I moved onto the hardest step, sewing in my open-ended zips. For this I had to measure the circumference of the trouser leg where I’d be sewing it in, and then I’d have to take pliers and pull out the zip teeth to where I needed it. This was difficult as the zip teeth were stubborn and made it challenging to pull out but once I persevered, I then had to sew back and forth at the end of the zip to make sure the zip itself didn’t pull off of the teeth. This also a pain as I broke three needles sewing back and forth for the zip stop but I hit the teeth and broke them. Next, I started to sew the zips into the trousers themselves, this meant first I closed the front and backs together to create three parts of the trousers as tubes and then I could open the zips up and sew them to their corresponding sides. With the zips going on I tried to make them open up first on the front but after the second zip went in, I realised I sewed one on backwards, rather than resolving this I made it a design decision to have two open back to front and two open fronts to back. Once I joined all the zips onto each side, I could then zip everything together to create my two legs. Finally, I joined them at the crotch and put in an exposed fly front zip to go with the rest of the exposed zips and attached my facing to the top to finish that while hemming the bottom to finish that end.

With my penultimate garment finished I moved onto the last piece, this being my puffer. At this point I was running out of time, and it caused me to rush this piece meaning it wasn’t how I wanted everything to go. After cutting out each panel I laid out the pieces and go to sewing the tops of the garment. This was simple as it was just straight lines and I had put notches to line everything up. However, after I had done this, I put the lining onto these pieces, and they were somehow too long. At this point I didn’t have time to remake the pattern or recut everything, so I put the lining on and cut off the excess while making sure I bagged out the parts where it needed to be bagged out. I then could start stuffing the garment. At this point, already after many things going wrong with the making of it I realised that I should’ve made the pattern much larger due to the fact that stuffing it would cause it to rise up the body and therefore make it look smaller, if I were to remake this piece, I would’ve definitely increased its original size and changed the method of making. With the front and back being stuffed I attached it at the side seams which didn’t look great as due to it being stuffed it was hard to get under my machine and also working with the rip stop fabric it’s made from meant it slid about as well. With this all I had to do now was attach the hood and sleeves. Making the sleeves I knew that with stuffing it was going to be difficult to attach them so I decided I’d wait until I could use the college machines where I could get it under properly to attach it, while this worked it wasn’t as clean as I’d like it to be. Finally, I moved onto the hood. I decided not to stuff it as I was getting closer to the deadline, and it was already hard to attach anyways. The first attempt didn’t work as somehow while cutting it, it had got smaller and with my darts I put in it it didn’t then fit onto the neck. This meant I had to unpick it from the neck and then also take out the darts. Finally getting it on I realised I had exposed seams that looked messy, so I decided I needed to cover them with bias binding, once this was done the final garment was complete.

Spray painting my garments.

As my theme was graffiti and streetwear making the streetwear inspired pieces was only one half of my design, I still had to spray all of my garments. Throughout my research and sketchbooks, I practiced different ways of tagging and recreating spray paint effects, however none of the techniques I had found worked as well in recreated the spray paint look rather than using spray paint itself. I tried finding different ways as I knew how difficult spray painting was and that the paint also slowly eats away at some fabrics and my use of different fabrics meant it applied differently to each of them. However, I preserved and painted them myself. Originally, I was going to go back to Leake Street in London where I had already visited and researched as it was a legal place to spray paint and I was going to get other artists to do it onto my garments for me, but due to time restraints and me not having everything completed by the time I planned on going I had to do it myself. This was also problematic as I only had red and purple spray paint. Moving on I chose to mainly just use red as it was a reoccurring colour in my project from the topstitching used and cording throughout my garments. Spraying my garments, myself was good as it meant I had control of what went onto them, I sprayed my title on most of the garments and where I thought it needed some extra detail, overall, I think the outcome of spraying it was good and I’m mostly happy with it.

Overall evaluation of my final garments.

The overall process of my making, toiles and final pieces, was mostly successful. The trousers for all three outfits went well 90% of the time with only a few problems throughout the making of the final pieces. However, besides the T-shirt for outfit 1, the tops for outfit 2 and 3 didn’t go well. For the corset I had to remake it as I wasn’t happy with the first final piece the first time however reworking it and starting a new garment that went well. The puffer gave me the biggest problems and I’m not happy with the final outcome, first it is too small, secondly the sewing on it was messy as I was trying to get it finished before the deadline. Overall, I could’ve made better pieces, but I am happy with 80% of what I made.